And so now I find you are
merely bewitching me with your spells and incantations, which have reduced me
to utter perplexity. And if I am indeed to have my jest, I consider that both
in your appearance and in other respects you are extremely like the flat
torpedo sea-fish; for it benumbs anyone who approaches and touches it, and
something of the sort is what I find you have done to me now. For in truth I
feel my soul and my tongue quite benumbed, and I am at a loss what answer to
give you. And yet on countless occasions I have made abundant speeches on
virtue to various people--and very good speeches they were, so I thought--but
now I cannot say one word as to what it is. You are well advised, I consider,
in not voyaging or taking a trip away from home; for if you went on like this
as a stranger in any other city you would very likely be arrested as a wizard.

Plato , Laws 933ae

[933a] We have now expressly
mentioned crimes in which injury is done to bodies by bodies according to
nature's laws. Distinct from this is the type which, by means of sorceries and
incantations and spells (as they are called)[ maggane€aiw t° tisin ka‹
§pƒda›w ka‹ katad°sesi], not only convinces those who attempt to cause injury that they
really can do so, but convinces also their victims that they certainly are
being injured by those who possess the power of bewitchment. In respect of all
such matters it is neither easy to perceive what is the real truth, nor, if one
does perceive it, is it easy to convince others. And it is futile to approach
the souls of men [933b] who view one another with dark suspicion if they happen
to see images of molded wax at doorways, or at points where three ways meet, or
it may be at the tomb of some ancestor, to bid them make light of all such
portents, when we ourselves hold no clear opinion concerning them.
Consequently, we shall divide the law about poisoning under two heads,
according to the modes in which the attempt is made, and, as a preliminary, we
shall entreat, exhort, and advise that no one must attempt [933c] to commit
such an act, or to frighten the mass of men, like children, with bogeys, and so
compel the legislator and the judge to cure men of such fears, inasmuch as,
first, the man who attempts poisoning knows not what he is doing either in
regard to bodies (unless he be a medical expert) or in respect of sorceries
(unless he be a prophet or diviner). So this statement shall stand [933d] as
the law about poisoning:--Whosoever shall poison any person so as to cause an
injury not fatal either to the person himself or to his employes, or so as to
cause an injury fatal or not fatal to his flocks or to his hives,--if the agent
be a doctor, and if he be convicted of poisoning, he shall be punished by
death; but if he be a lay person, the court shall assess in his case what he
shall suffer or pay. And if it be held that a man is acting like an injurer by
the use of spells, incantations, [933e] or any such mode of poisoning, if he be
a prophet or diviner, he shall be put to death; but if he be ignorant of the
prophetic art, he shall be dealt with in the same way as a layman convicted of
poisoning,--that is to say, the court shall assess in his case also what shall
seem to them right for him to suffer or pay. In all cases where one man causes
damage to another by acts of robbery or violence, if the damage be great, he
shall pay a large sum as compensation to the damaged party, and a small sum if
the damage be small; and as a general rule, every man shall in every case pay a
sum equal to the damage done, until the loss is made good; and, in addition to
this, every man shall pay the penalty which is attached to his crime by way of
corrective.

Plato Laws 909d-910d

For all these offenders one
general law must be laid down, such as will cause the majority of them not only
to offend less against the gods by word and deed, but also to become less
foolish, through being forbidden to trade in religion illegally. To deal
comprehensively with all such cases the following law shall be enacted:--No one
shall possess a shrine in his own house: when any one is moved in spirit to do
sacrifice, [909e] he shall go to the public places to sacrifice, and he shall
hand over his oblations to the priests and priestesses to whom belongs the
consecration thereof; and he himself, together with any associates he may
choose, shall join in the prayers. This procedure shall be observed for the
following reasons--It is no easy task to found temples and gods, and to do this
rightly needs much deliberation; yet it is customary for all women especially,
and for sick folk everywhere, and those in peril or in distress (whatever the nature
of the distress), and conversely for those who have had a slice of good
fortune, to dedicate whatever happens to be at hand at the moment, and to vow
sacrifices [910a] and promise the founding of shrines to gods and demi-gods and
children of gods; and through terrors caused by waking visions or by dreams,
and in like manner as they recall many visions and try to provide remedies for
each of them, they are wont to found altars and shrines, and to fill with them
every house and every village, and open places too, and every spot which was
the scene of such experiences. For all these reasons their action should be
governed by the law now stated; and a further reason is this--to prevent
impious men [910b] from acting fraudulently in regard to these matters also, by
setting up shrines and altars in private houses, thinking to propitiate the
gods privily by sacrifices and vows, and thus increasing infinitely their own
iniquity, whereby they make both themselves and those better men who allow them
guilty in the eyes of the gods, so that the whole State reaps the consequences
of their impiety in some degree--and deserves to reap them. The lawgiver
himself, however, will not be blamed by the god; for this shall be the law laid
down:--Shrines of the gods no one must possess [910c] in a private house; and
if anyone is proved to possess and worship at any shrine other than the public
shrines--be the possessor man or woman,--and if he is guilty of no serious act
of impiety, he that notices the fact shall inform the Law-wardens, and they
shall give orders for the private shrines to be removed to the public temples,
and if the owner disobeys the order, they shall punish him until he removes
them. [910d] And if anyone be proved to have committed an impious act, such as
is not the venial offence of children, but the serious irreligion of grown men,
whether by setting up a shrine on private ground, or on public ground, by doing
sacrifice to any gods whatsoever, for sacrificing in a state of impurity he
shall be punished with death. And the Law-wardens shall judge what is a
childish or venial offence and what not, and then shall bring the offenders
before the court, and shall impose upon them the due penalty for their impiety.

Constantine's edict of 318
(Codex Theodosianus IX.16.3)

If any are discovered to have
been using magic arts so as to threaten men's safety or pervert modest persons
to libidinous practices, their science is to be punished and deservedly
penalized according to the severest laws.However, no accusations are to be heard against remedies sought out for
human bodies or, in rural districts, to protect the mature grapes from fear of
rains or from being crushed by the pounding of hailstones.

Sententiae receptae Paulo
tributae XXI, XXII.15-18

Any who perform, or procure
the performance of, impious or nocturnal sacrifices, to enchant, curse, or bind
anyone with a spell, are either crucified or thrown to the beasts.Any who sacrifice a man, or make
offerings of his blood, or pollute a shrine or temple are thrown to the beasts
or, if people of position, are beheaded.It is the prevailing legal opinion that participants in the magical art
should be subject to the extreme punishment, that is, either thrown to the
beast or crucified, but the magicians themselves should be burned alive.It is not permitted for anyone to have in
his possession books of the magic art.If they are found in anyone's possession, when his property has been
expropriated and the books burned publicly, he is to be deported to an island,
or, if he is of the lower class, beheaded.Not only the practice of this art, but even the knowledge of
it, is prohibited.

Prophets who pretend that
they are filled with the god are to be expelled from the city to the end that
public good behavior should not be corrupted by human credulity for the hope of
some promised event, or, in any case, that the peoples' minds should not be
disturbed by this.Therefore, they
are first lashed, then expelled from the city.But if they persist, they are thrown into public prison, or
deported to an island, or, at all events, sent elsewhere.Those who introduce new sects or religious
observances unknown to reasonable men, things by which peoples' minds might be
disturbed, are to be deported if upper class, executed if lower.Anyone who consults astrologers,
soothsayers, readers of entrails, or diviners about the life expectancy of the
emperor, or the stability of the government, is to be executed, as is the one
who gives the response.One had
better avoid not only the act of divination, but the science itself, and its
books.

Ammianus Marcellinus
16.8.2, 19.12.14

"If anyone consulted a
soothsayer about the squeaking of a shrew-mouse, the meeting with a weasel on
the way, or any like portent, or used some old wife's charm to relieve pain (a
thing which even medical authority allows), he was indicted (from what source
he could not guess), was haled into court, and suffered death as the penalty.
… Anyone who wore round his nect a charm against quartan ague or some
other complaint, or was accused by his ill-wishers of visiting a grave in the
evening, was found guilty and executed as a sorcerer or as an inquirer into the
horror's of men's tombs and the empty phantoms of the spirits which haunt
them."

Plotinus II.9.14

In
the sacred formulas they inscribe, purporting to address the Supernal Beings-
not merely the Soul but even the Transcendents- they are simply uttering spells
and appeasements and evocations in the idea that these Powers will obey a call
and be led about by a word from any of us who is in some degree trained to use
the appropriate forms in the appropriate way- certain melodies, certain sounds,
specially directed breathings, sibilant cries, and all else to which is
ascribed magic potency upon the Supreme. Perhaps they would repudiate any such
intention: still they must explain how these things act upon the unembodied: they
do not see that the power they attribute to their own words is so much taken
away from the majesty of the divine.

Proclus On the Sacred Art

From these facts, the masters of the Sacred Art found
the way to pay divine honours to the Higher Powers, by following what lay in
front of their eyes, and by mixing together some things and removing others, as
appropriate. And when they made use of a mixture of things it was because they
had observed that unmixed each thing has some quality of the God, but taken
alone was not sufficient to invoke them. So by mixing together many different
things they unified the emanations referred to previously and by the production
of one thing from many, they made a likeness of that Whole which exists before
every thing else comes into being. And so they often constructed images and
incenses from these mixtures, mingling into one the divided Divine Sigils, and
making by art that which a God contains essentially. Thus they unified the
multiplicity of powers which when dispersed are weakened, but when combined
lead back up to the essential Form of its Archetype.

Augustine, City of God,
Book VIII, Chapter 19

--Of the Impiety of the Magic
Art, Which is Dependent on the Assistance of Malign Spirits.

Moreover, against those magic
arts, concerning which some men, exceedingly wretched and exceedingly impious,
delight to boast, may not public opinion itself be brought forward as a
witness?For why are those arts so
severely punished by the laws, if they are the works of deities who ought to be
worshipped?Shall it be said that
the Christians have ordained those laws by which magic arts are punished?With what other meaning, except that
these sorceries are without doubt pernicious to the human race, did the most
illustrious poet say,"By heaven, I swear, and your dear
life,Unwillingly these arms
I wield,And take, to meet
the coming strife, Enchantment's sword and shield." (Virgil, Æn. 4.
492, 493) And that also which he says in another place concerning magic arts,
"I've seen him to another place transport the standing corn,"(Virgil,
Ec. 8. 99) has reference to the fact that the fruits of one field are said to
be transferred to another by these arts which this pestiferous and accursed
doctrine teaches.Does not Cicero
inform us that, among the laws of the Twelve Tables, that is, the most ancient
laws of the Romans, there was a law written which appointed a punishment to be
inflicted on him who should do this?Lastly, was it before Christian judges that Apuleius himself was accused
of magic arts?Had he known these
arts to be divine and pious, and congruous with the works of divine power, he
ought not only to have confessed, but also to have professed them, rather
blaming the laws by which these things were prohibited and pronounced worthy of
condemnation, while they ought to have been held worthy of admiration and
respect.For by so doing, either
he would have persuaded the judges to adopt his own opinion, or, if they had
shown their partiality for unjust laws, and condemned him to death
notwithstanding his praising and commending such things, the demons would have
bestowed on his soul such rewards as he deserved, who, in order to proclaim and
set forth their divine works, had not feared the loss of his human life. As our
martyrs, when that religion was charged on them as a crime, by which they knew
they were made safe and most glorious throughout eternity, did not choose, by
denying it, to escape temporal punishments, but rather by confessing,
professing, and proclaiming it, by enduring all things for it with fidelity and
fortitude, and by dying for it with pious calmness, put to shame the law by
which that religion was prohibited, and caused its revocation.But there is extant a most copious and
eloquent oration of this Platonic philosopher, in which he defends himself
against the charge of practising these arts, affirming that he is wholly a
stranger to them, and only wishing to show his innocence by denying such things
as cannot be innocently committed.But all the miracles of the magicians, who he thinks are justly
deserving of condemnation, are performed according to the teaching and by the
power of demons.